Rockin' smoothie!

Despite the fact that Mr TOTKat doesn't like this one, I absolutely -love- it:-

Mint, Choc smoothie (serves 2)
1 cup Liquorice and Mint tea
1x small banana (flesh only)
1x frozen peach
1x avocado (flesh only)
70g chopped Chinese Leaf
75ml skimmed milk
2x scoops chocolate flavour whey protein
1x handful of fresh mint leaves

Make the tea well in advance so it has a chance to cool properly (this is the bit I didn't bother with so it was all a bit faintly warm), chill it if at all possible.  Blend everything else very well, then add the tea and blend again.  Serve in tall glasses with straws.

It tastes like melted mint-choc-chip ice-cream :o)

Smoothies

I've been experimenting a bit with smoothies recently (again), but the ones that you end up putting in a bowl because they're way too thick to drink.  So far, I've made:-

• Peach and raspberry (with spinach)
• Banana, chocolate and peach (with lettuce)
• Chocolate, peanut butter and banana (with avocado)*
• Salad vegetable smoothie (avocado, pepper, tomato, celery and avocado with olive oil and balsamic vinegar)

And they're all gorgeous and full of vitamins and minerals in an easy to deal with form that's relatively natural (so the combinations for absorption are there, rather than the isolated vitamins and minerals in pill supplements).  But.  Tricky to eat in that they get quite fluffy and aerated.  When you're in a hurry, that sucks quite a bit.  On weekday mornings, it won't work for breakfast as there's just not the time.  However, in general we should all be taking a good length of time to eat our meals, mostly to allow the body to figure out that we're eating and release the relevant satiety chemicals and then react to them etc. so it can really help with that as the texture forces you to slow right down.  The icing on the cake is that they taste pretty good.  OK, so they're mainly sweet flavours and I've not got a huge sweet tooth so I'd like to work out some more savoury ones.  So far I've managed to make a very thick version of V8 in the savoury flavours; pretty limited imagination there on my part.

I'm not likely to be making and eating smoothies a couple of times a day, or even every day; it's just not convenient time-wise.  If I could make one in the morning and have it still in a good state for an afternoon snack at work that might work, but it seems to me that they're best consumed within an hour of making at the longest.

Anyone of the smoothie making crowd out there got any suggestions or experience in keeping them fresh for a few hours or longer?  And any ideas for more, distinctly different savoury smoothies to make?

* - recipe added on request:-

• 1 scoop chocolate whey protein, or 1tsp good cocoa powder
• 1/2 frozen banana
• 1/2 fresh avocado
• 1/2 fresh peach (do not peel!)
• 25g crunchy peanut butter
• 2x ice cubes
• 150ml skimmed milk

Blitz the lot in a blender/with a hand blender.  Add ice to thicken more or water to thin out if it's too thick.

Smoothie test

I read a few blogs here and there, mostly because they're health & fitness blogs and I've followed the people for a while and am interested in what they have to say and in following their journeys as people.  One of these is a lady who (amongst many things) is a vegetarian with a focus on raw foods; Laura.  She's a total whizz with the green monsters and smoothies in general, makes them all pretty and textured too, and I'd been interested in smoothies for a while.  I've dabbled here and there and been mostly limited to quite boring, samey ingredients of banana, banana, strawberries, banana, maybe blueberries, but that's been it.  I've also tried getting greens into the smoothies but I've only ever had "difficult" greens available for that; things like kale and winter greens are extremely fibrous and with a hand blender, you end up with a very tricky (in fact bordering on unpleasant) smoothie that really feels like you are forcing yourself to eat it.

In an attempt to have more of a proper go at smoothies, I got some peaches to freeze and decided to try the other blender attachment, which is basically a small table-top blender that you fix the motor section to the top.  And this is the result...

Having checked Laura's blog for some recipe inspiration I blended up:-

• Half a frozen peach
• Half a frozen banana
• 1/3 iceberg lettuce
• 1 scoop chocolate whey protein
• 100ml milk
• 2x ice cubes

And was amazed by how thick it turned out.  It's like a mousse!  And it's a huge bowl.  Really a lot bigger than I was expecting and a little bit too sweet and slightly bland, but I'm having it for breakfast anyway.  Next time, I'll drop the milk down to 50ml, up the peach to a whole one or even two and see how that changes the taste.  I'm looking to get more acidic tang from the peaches and a bit more flavour.  The texture is so aerated that it's a bit difficult to eat; you need to chew the air bubbles out a bit before you can swallow.  Not sure it's a practical breakfast for me seeing as how long it takes to eat, but it's a bunch of fruit and veg in a bowl in an easy format which has to be a good thing.

Omnomnom smoothie

No gym again today due to needing to just not do that.  I've been 3 times this week and it's not like I'm not doing quite well with the fat loss - down to 25.2% body fat now!

A gentle day of laundry and paperwork today, with a nommy fruit smoothie in the afternoon:-

 

Made with banana, blueberries, blackberries, some yogurt, 10g whey and some semi-skimmed milk.  Gorgeous!

And there's a roast chicken dinner later with sweet potato, broccoli and gravy; nom!

Next week, I hope to concentrate on some endurance exercise for my legs and core to support skiing the week after.  Unweighted squats, lunges and Bulgarian split squats along with the Wave machine, cross-trainer and bike, and planks and reverse crunches.